Rhetorical Miracle — The Challenge to Produce a Surah
الإعجاز البياني — تحدي الإتيان بسورة
Verse reference
فَأْتُوا بِسُورَةٍ مِّن مِّثْلِهِالبقرة 23
Interpretive reading
A linguistic challenge to all eloquent Arabs across the ages; no one has been able to produce anything comparable to it.
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Related readings
The words 'sea' and 'land' in their proportional occurrence
ظَهَرَ الْفَسَادُ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ
The word “sea” appears 32 times in the Quran and “land” 13 times, a ratio of 32/(32+13) = 71.1%. Some readers note that this percentage may be read as corresponding to the proportion of Earth’s surface covered by water; this is an interpretive reading.
كلمة البحر والبر بنسبتهما الحقيقيةThe word 'day' and its plural
خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ
The singular word 'day' appears 365 times in the Quran — the same number as days in the solar year. This observation is sometimes read as meaningful and is an interpretive reading.
كلمة يوم وجمعهNumerical Symmetry in Quranic Words
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The words “this world” and “the Hereafter” each occur 115 times; “intellect” and “light” each occur 49 times; and “angels” and “devils” each occur 68 times. This is an interpretive reading of word frequencies and may be understood as highlighting numerical correspondences in the Quran.
التناسق العددي في كلمات القرآن